Monday, 16 November 2009

Löwenbräu and WW II

Here's a companion to yesterday's post. To allow you to compare and contrast the impact of the two world wars on Bavarian brewing. Or something like that. That doesn't sound too examy, does it?

The first thing to strike me was that at no time during the Nazi period did Löwenbräu brew as much as they had on the eve of WW I. This is typical. Few German breweries managed to better their Edwardian output records until the 1950's.

Now I'd always though that brewing came to pretty much a standstill in Germany around the end of 1943. Evidently it didn't. What I do know is that a couple of years into the was, most of what got brewed was barely alcoholic.

If you'd seen the mess the brewery was by the end of the war, you'd be amazed that they still managed to brew anything. A couple of direct hits by bombs had reduced most of the buildings to rubble.

Seems like Lowenbrau is used to surviving bombs and disasters during that period , here's an interesting article :http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/beer-bottle-hindenburg-disaster-worlds-expensive/story?id=9043449